3. From left: Birds, hand-carved in soapstone in China, are $75 a pair at William-Wayne.
We didn't win anything, but a kindly gentleman who had already nabbed three stuffed Tweety Birds handed Samantha one without asking for recompense.
Comparing 6 8 month old birds hand-reared in the lab with age-matched birds caught from the wild as fledged juveniles a minimum of 1 month previously, we examined the birds' initial reactions in a novel environment (a small cage) and found that wild-caught starlings were faster to initiate movement compared to the hand-reared birds.
The birds were left in their host nests until day 12, whereupon they were brought into the laboratory, the two treatment groups mixed, and the birds hand-reared to independence.
The predators, domestic chickens, comprised ca. 30 45 days old birds hand-reared in the poultry farm of the state-run Kerala State Poultry Development Corporation (KEPCO), Trivandrum, which provided the necessary permits for the experiments.
Once in captivity, the genetic families were recomposed in buckets and the birds hand-reared until fledging around D21 (for details of hand-rearing methods see Feenders & Bateson, 2011).
Contrary to our predictions, the results from the autoshaping task suggest that, if anything, hand-reared birds apparently learnt faster than wild-caught birds: hand-reared birds tended to start pecking after fewer trials, and pecked faster within individual trials.
Theropod hands retain only digits I-II-III, so digits of the modern bird hand are often identified as I-II-III.
9.5″ blue glass bird, hand-blown by Iittala craftsmen.
Given the choice, I would always choose guinea over chicken — a better bird, hands down.
